Visual charm, a simple plot, and a big-hearted royal young hero.
A little princess knows just what to do about her new fairy friends’ big problem in Waldecker’s illustrated children’s book.
Adventure-loving Princess Ella is sure that the stories about fairies living in a secret garden in the woods are true, but her previous searches for the magical place have been unsuccessful. This time, however, the princess discovers a hidden path in the forest “lined with the most incredible flowers and plants” where “the air shone with a misty glow.” She knows that the fairies’ garden has to be near. It turns out that the fairies have been hoping to meet Princess Ella because they have a problem and hope she can help: Woodcutters from Ella’s kingdom are getting too close to the magical garden as they chop down trees to build homes for the human villagers. Ella, depicted as a sweet-faced little girl with blond hair and big blue eyes, knows exactly what to do: She offers the villagers an alternative forest to reap for wood with the proviso that they plant new trees as they go. The villagers are surprisingly compliant, considering that they’re not told why they must change their way of doing things. But children will easily grasp that Ella feels that caring for living things—fairies, people, and trees—is important. Waldecker again teams with prolific children’s book illustrator Geyer, who created the eye-catching, whimsical artwork for the two previous books in the Princess Ella Adventures series, Princess Ella and the Great Squirrel Chase (2023) and Princess Ella and the Missing Kittens (2023). Geyer contributes a lush palette (soft greens, blues, purples, and yellows) and delicately rendered details (of trees, flowers, foliage, waterfalls, sparkly lights, and tiny, multicolored fairies shimmering in clouds of fairy dust). The alternately black and white text, rendered in a cozy, readable font, is set against solid-colored design elements within the full-page illustrations. Reflecting Princess Ella’s adventurous spirit and her kind and helpful heart, this simply told story should please preschoolers and young readers alike.
Visual charm, a simple plot, and a big-hearted royal young hero.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798988126577
Page Count: 34
Publisher: P.E. Adventures Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite.
Humpty Dumpty, classically portrayed as an egg, recounts what happened after he fell off the wall in Santat’s latest.
An avid ornithophile, Humpty had loved being atop a high wall to be close to the birds, but after his fall and reassembly by the king’s men, high places—even his lofted bed—become intolerable. As he puts it, “There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” Although fear bars Humpty from many of his passions, it is the birds he misses the most, and he painstakingly builds (after several papercut-punctuated attempts) a beautiful paper plane to fly among them. But when the plane lands on the very wall Humpty has so doggedly been avoiding, he faces the choice of continuing to follow his fear or to break free of it, which he does, going from cracked egg to powerful flight in a sequence of stunning spreads. Santat applies his considerable talent for intertwining visual and textual, whimsy and gravity to his consideration of trauma and the oft-overlooked importance of self-determined recovery. While this newest addition to Santat’s successes will inevitably (and deservedly) be lauded, younger readers may not notice the de-emphasis of an equally important part of recovery: that it is not compulsory—it is OK not to be OK.
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-682-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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